What doesmaranathamean?

Two Aramaic words signifying, 'the Lord cometh,' added (perhaps as a kind of watchword) after the word Anathema, 'let him be accursed,' applied to those who love not the Lord Jesus. 1 Cor. 16:22.

Mar a nath’a The Lord comes

The three closing verses are a blending of solemnity and grace. The Corinthians were prominent as to gift but deficient as to love. Hence verse 22. Many of us are like the Corinthians. Let us take it to heart that it is love that counts. Not to love the Lord Jesus means a curse at His coming when all profession will be tested. Maran-atha is not Greek but Aramaic, signifying "The Lord is coming."

(Vv. 21-24). The Apostle appends his salutation with his own hand, the sure token that he has dictated the letter (2 Thess. 3:17). He adds a solemn word of warning, only found in this Epistle, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha”. The meaning of these words is, we are told, “Accursed: our Lord comes”. It would indicate that the coming of the Lord may reveal the solemn fact that there are some who have taken their place amongst the Lord's people who have never really been touched by His love and therefore have no love for Him, and so prove that they are not the Lord's. The Apostle desires that the grace of the Lord may be with these saints, and concludes by assuring them that his love went out to them all. It was not, however, mere human love, but love “in Christ Jesus”. However faithfully he may have written to them, love was the motive; thus he carried out his own exhortation to them, “Let all things ye do be done in love”.

Solemn is the final statement after the greetings. "If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be Anathema Maranatha. The words "Anathema Maranatha" mean "Accursed--Our Lord cometh." And accursed will be any man who has rejected the Love and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It shows that some in the Corinthian assembly may have been mere professing Christians without ever having tasted the love of Christ. Then the final word "The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus."

This is a Greek word untranslated in 1 Cor. 16:22; it occurs also in Rom. 9:3; 1 Cor. 12:3; Gal. 1:8-9 and is uniformly translated 'accursed.' The solemn passage in 1 Cor. 16 is "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed, Maranatha (the Lord cometh)." In Galatians it is said that if any person or even an angel from heaven preached any other gospel than that which they had received, let him be accursed. Two solemn denunciations relating to the person of the Lord Jesus and the gospel of God.

"Maranatha" is a compound of two Aramaic words, meaning "the Lord comes." He thus brings to bear upon men's consciences that great day when everything will be brought to an issue for eternity. The Lord's descent into the air will remove to glory every believing soul; His public manifestation in the clouds of heaven will seal the doom of every foe. The door may soon be shut; the Gospel day may soon be over; happy the man who has found shelter in Christ the Lord. The long-neglected truth of the Lord's coming may well thrill every believing heart, while calculated to strike terror into the bosom of every rejecter of His grace.

The salutation with his own hand was, as we have seen before, the token in every epistle that Paul wrote. Appended to it here is his solemn pronunciation of judgment from the Lord at His coming upon every one who did not love the Lord. That is the force of Anathema Maranatha. It is evident how serious the condition was at Corinth, which impelled him to such words as these. He adds as customarily: "The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you" and "my love be with you all in Christ Jesus."

The final announcement of the Lord's coming again in this epistle is in 1 Cor. 16:22: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha," that is, accursed at the coming of the Lord. This is a solemn word for all to hear. How right it is that all should love the Lord Jesus

The apostle, then, appends his salutation with his own hand; for here, as usually, the body of the epistle was not in his autograph. But he also adds the sternest denunciation of any one who loved not the Lord, under a seemingly familiar Syrian formula. Calvin ridicules the idea of writing so to Greeks in that tongue; but, explain it as you may, such is the fact, which does not seem mitigated by his own suggestion that it was a customary form of expressing excommunication among the Hebrews. To me it appears to go farther still: yet did it not in the least clash with the love which animated and filled his heart, as one sees from verse 23, and especially 24. It is to be doubted indeed whether love can be unfeigned without abhorring evil; and what evil can compare with bearing the name of the Lord without real attachment to Him?